226 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
less than the cost of production. It was 
eithei a question of organizing and doing 
away with some of the disadvantages of 
individual effort, or quitting the busi¬ 
ness. Both of these organizations 
came to an untimely end by the freezes 
of the winters of 1894 and 1895, the 
first occurring on the night of Decem¬ 
ber 29, 1894, and the second on the 
9th of February, 1895. As * s shown by 
the statistics attached to this paper 
there was a very large slump in the 
amount of both vegetables and fruit 
produced in the State. This in a meas¬ 
ure evened up matters and did away 
with the necessity of organization. 
However, if the organizations had been 
continued it would undoubtedly have 
proven profitable to the members of the 
Associations. These and a number of 
succeeding very cold winters culminating 
in the very low temperature of February 
13, 1899, seemed to put an end to all 
hopes of citrus growing in the northern 
portion of the peninsula of Florida. Had 
the freezes of ’94 and ’95 occurred singly 
the damage would not have been serious. 
Likewise had the freezes of ’94 and ’95 
not occurred the succeeding cold winters 
would not have upset the citrus industry 
so badly. 
In the early nineties the Indian River 
and Lake Worth Pineapple Growers’ As¬ 
sociation was formed for the handling of 
pineapples in that region. This continued 
in existence until after shipping the crop 
of 1911. 
Alany people have said that the great 
freezes were a blessing in disguise, but 
the disguise is so completely veiled that 
even the keen scrutiny of statistics will 
not reveal the blessings. Just how these 
optimists are successful in seeing the 
blessing is more than I can tell. The vis¬ 
ible blessing is certainly not to be taken 
into consideration. Every industry in the 
state felt the effects of these disastrous 
freezes and even those lines of work that 
we would have expected to be benefited 
by the freezing out of the citrus crops 
languished as a result. 
It took Florida over fourteen years to 
catch up with the procession, in other 
words it was not until 1908, that dis¬ 
aster was again staring us in the face. 
Both in the vegetable and citrus line. 
This disaster being due to the individu¬ 
alized efforts that had been put forward 
in the last decade or decade and a half 
since the freezes. 
The demoralization of the work due to 
lack of organization reached its maximum 
in the winter of 1907-08, At this time 
the citrus crop in California was very 
heavy, but the Florida crop had not 
reached the porportions It attained in 
1894. 
In 1908 the Florida Orange Growers’ 
Company was organized, mainly through 
the activities of Mr. Josiah Varn. 
This was a step in the right direction 
but most of the citrus growers in the 
State thought it was not sufficient to rem¬ 
edy the trouble. As a result of the agita¬ 
tion and an excursion to California, a con¬ 
vention was called for a more perfect or¬ 
ganization of the citrus growers. This 
was held at Tampa on July 22, 1908, and 
Fruit and Produce News, November 3, 1O08. 
P- 9 , 
